A Thing of Beauty

How do we determine what is beautiful?

Hi Zan, Hi Pa

Volume #36

March 10th, 2025

HI, ZAN: Let’s talk about beauty.

HI, PA: The first thing that comes to mind when I think of beauty is sunrise—specifically, a sunrise I caught when leaving the town of O Cebreiro on the Camino de Santiago in 2017.

It was dark when I laced up my shoes and left the pilgrim hostel, but as I climbed a steep path up into the hills of Galicia, the most vibrant combination of oranges and purples I’d ever seen appeared on the horizon, casting light and shadow on the undulating patchwork quilt of fields and forest that stretched out as far as I could see. And I remember being so disappointed that this scene’s beauty didn’t show up in the pictures I took on my phone, so I took a mental picture instead.

Sunrise over O Cebreiro, Spain.

Zan continues: I’ve probably seen more objectively “impressive” scenery in the years since, but there was something about being alone on the trail witnessing such a beautiful yet mundane event that has stuck with me.

What comes to mind when you think of beauty?

PA: First, your description of that sunrise is in itself beauty.

What comes to mind are the myriad ways the word applies, everything from physical beauty of a person or landscape, to the beauty of certain pieces of music, certain kinds of behavior, certain thoughts and ideas.

What’s particularly interesting to me is how something that seems beautiful to one person can be neutral or even ugly to another. What do you think accounts for that?

ZAN: I had a theory once that what people find most beautiful is what looks most alive to them. Maybe that’s why we tend to associate things like youth or flowers with beauty. And maybe “alive” is relative—I grew up in the woods, so I associate lush vegetation with beauty because it’s what I experienced each spring as a kid when the forest came back to life…

PA: That’s interesting. I grew up in the city and have a particular fascination for beautiful architecture.

Lecce, Italy. Courtesy of Amanda S. Merullo.

Pa continues: Speaking of which, Mom and I had a breakfast conversation today, here in Italy, that bears on the subject we’re discussing. I was saying how much I enjoy going into the churches here for my daily meditation. They’re almost always empty and spectacularly ornate. The stone from which they’re carved, pietra leccese, is a soft sandstone, native to these parts and easily worked, so the carvings are incredibly intricate. I was saying how I’ll never find anything like that at home, and Mom agreed. She then pointed out that I have a preference for the aesthetics of the Mediterranean countries, Italy and Spain in particular, and that the ‘colder’ ecclesiastical aesthetic farther north does very little for me. She’s right, so maybe blood heritage contributes a little to our sense of what’s beautiful and what isn’t?

ZAN: That makes sense to me, though the kinds of places I find most beautiful have nothing to do with my heritage. Vibrant green rice paddies next to red dirt roads in Cambodia and the arid mountains of Peru are some of my favorite landscapes—maybe because I associate them with how I feel in those places? They ignite both awe and a sense of comfort for me, which together feel beautiful.

Beyond aesthetic beauty, what do you find beautiful?